GUEST COMMENTARY: War By the Polls? What’s Going On Here?

 By Joseph J. Honick

 Bainbridge Island, WA  – There is something incredible going on as the tiny State of Israel contends not only with the terrorist Hezbollah but its financiers and suppliers from Iran and Syria and the promoters from other Arab countries:   judgments are being promoted by the likes of CNN, AOL and others   not party to the conflict to decide through polls whether Israel should defend its citizens aggressively.

 Suppose World War II had been run this way as wave after wave of courageous RAF and American Air Force bombers flew dangerous missions against our enemies.  Suppose, George Washington had conducted a poll of the Colonies before leading his often unenthusiastic troops against the British in the American Revolution.

   As outlandish as all that sounds, it is what is going on right now, with almost no one questioning the process?   Reporting from inside Lebanon,   CNN’s reputable   correspondent   Anderson Cooper revealed the phoniness of Hezbollah’s controlled sudden eruptions of sirens and ambulances, shrieking people on scooters and other carefully created incidents.

According to Cooper: Civilian casualties are clearly what Hezbollah wants foreign correspondents to focus on.   It keeps attention off them — and the questions about why Hezbollah should still be allowed to have weapons when all other militias have already disarmed.

 Continuing, Cooper reported:  “After letting us take pictures of a few damaged buildings, they take us to another location where there are ambulances waiting.   This is a heavily orchestrated Hezbollah event.  When we got here, all the ambulances were lined up. Then, one by one, they’ve been told to turn on their sirens and zoom off so that all the photographers here can get shots.”

 Those ambulances aren’t responding to any new bombings.  The sirens are strictly for effect, according to Cooper, who concluded by saying “Hezbollah may not be terribly subtle about spinning — (but) is still organized enough to have a public relations strategy.”

   It is no accident that The Royal embassy of Saudi Arabia paid its PR firm, Qorvis Communications, $3.6 million during the six month period ending March 2006 for support of Ambassador Prince Turki Al-Faisal’s so called “listening tour” of the United States, according to the reliable public relations publication O’Dwyer’s Newsletter — or that King Abdullah suddenly plunged into the Israel/Hezbollah conflict by asserting “Saudi Arabia warns everybody that if the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no other option but war.”

   These $3.6 millions are on top of many more millions paid to the firm to conduct extensive media relations work that, according to O’Dwyer, resulted in editorial board meetings for the Ambassador with the Los Angeles Times, CNN and New York Times editorial meetings.

 Witness as well the apparently and carefully orchestrated polls of Americans after heavily anti-Israel news reports from the same media.   In the case of CNN on just one day, an anchor repeated over and over again that Hezbollah had been legitimized by election to the Lebanese government, with virtually no contradictory commentary about its abuse of that involvement by remaining an armed force while others have been disarmed.  It also ignored that such election historically also put Adolf Hitler legally into office in Germany as Vice Chancellor.

   Also missing from any known analysis is that much of the news coverage comes from an assemblage of reporters, biased and otherwise, from around the world somehow permitted to set up all sorts of sound, lighting, cameras and personnel, mostly in the Lebanon side.   The numbers of people who have to be involved are hard to calculate, but, in such situations, they can constitute scores of such folks, and it is interesting to note how easily they can roam the territory Hezbollah wants them to report on.

   What we have then is little attention being paid to the incontrovertible fact that it takes hundreds of millions to finance Hezbollah without revealing the sources of those funds given that the militia, movement or whatever it is called, is not supposed to receive money for its efforts from the Lebanese government.

   This leaves the conclusion that the terrorist organization is the surrogate for Iran and Syria with sudden further public endorsement by the Iraqi Prime Minister for whom we provide billions to keep the Iraqi government going and to whom we supply more than 130,000 American men and women to protect his country.

   In the end, there is good reason to suspect the Saudis, who have long worked to propagandize against Israel with its oil wealth, and other Arab countries who have declared their yearning to destroy not only Israel but Jews almost everywhere, have conspired to finance Hezbollah at heavy costs to innocent people in both Lebanon and Israel and to foment uprisings in Gaza which Israel surrendered at huge cost.

   The question ultimately is why the media so heavily contacted because of Saudi millions have not raised these questions, and why Congress has ignored these realities as well.

            * * *

 

Joseph J. Honick is a contributing columnist to Huntington News Network and President of GMA International Ltd.  

 

 

Marshall Receives $1.3 Million from Donald B. Harper Estate; Gift Will Support Endowed College of Fine Arts Scholarship

By DavidKinchen.com Staff

Huntington, WV  – Marshall University announced Friday, Aug. 4, 2006, that it has received a gift of $1.3 million from the estate of Donald B. Harper that will support an endowed scholarship in the university’s College of Fine Arts.

Harper, a 1950 Marshall graduate, established the Donald B. Harper Scholarship in 1995 to assist West Virginia residents in the College of Fine Arts.

The announcement from Michael Cornfeld, associate dean of the College of Fine Arts, came during a brunch for members of Marshall’s Heritage Society in the Drinko Library atrium. The unveiling of a plaque honoring Harper for his gift followed. The plaque is the 17th on MU’s Pathway of Prominence, which is reserved for those who have given at least $1 million to Marshall.

“Don Harper was a dedicated patron of all the arts and particularly those at Marshall,” Don Van Horn, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said. “He had a deep desire to help West Virginia students with interests in pursuing studies in art and design, music or theatre realize their dreams by coming to college. This desire manifested itself in the endowed scholarship Don established in the mid-1990s for West Virginia students majoring in fine arts at Marshall.”

John Kinzer, interim chief executive officer of the Marshall University Foundation, Inc., said the Donald Harper Endowed Scholarship is the largest scholarship gift from an individual the foundation has ever received. “This means so much to future Marshall students,” Kinzer said. “The fund will provide 12 to 15 scholarships in perpetuity. Donald Harper is an example of the Heritage Society members who give to Marshall University during their lives and also remember the university in their estate planning.”

Marshall President Stephen J. Kopp said gifts such as the one from Harper “make a compelling difference in the educational opportunities available to students. And, in doing so, they impact and transform student lives in meaningful and enduring ways,” he said.

Harper received his Bachelor of Science degree from Marshall and his MBA from Columbia University. He served four years in the U.S. Air Force and worked for the General Service Administration in Washington, D.C. After retiring in the 1980s, Harper returned to Huntington to care for his parents.

During Harper’s lifetime, the endowed scholarship had increased through his gifts from $25,000 to $85,000. Upon his death on Dec. 27, 2003, his trust was divided among Marshall, Trinity Episcopal Church and the Huntington Museum of Art, which resulted in Marshall receiving $1.3 million. Van Horn said the gift makes the endowed scholarship one of the largest specifically earmarked to a college on Marshall’s campus.

“Don was extremely proud of this scholarship,” Van Horn said. “He always joined the college at our annual Awards Convocation in the spring so he could be a part of the recognition of the scholarship recipients.”

Recipients of the Donald B. Harper Scholarship must be full-time sophomores and have a minimum GPA of 3.0 in their majors and a 2.5 GPA overall.

According to the scholarship guidelines, they also should have displayed talent in their majors, show potential for growth and have demonstrated a commitment to the fine arts. The award may be renewed for up to three years if the recipient maintains a 3.0 GPA.

“Students for generations to come will benefit from Don’s generosity,” Van Horn said. “The Don Harper scholarship fund will be large enough to enable us to provide substantial support to a number of our very best students. We are forever grateful to Don Harper for his vision.”

THE GAYLE MANCHIN REPORT: August is Educational Technology Month

By Gayle Manchin
First Lady of West Virginia

Charleston, WV   — August is the month we begin to realize that summer is drawing quickly to an end, and in a few short weeks, students of all ages will be beginning a new and exciting school year. West Virginia schools realize that learning today means preparing students for the future by promoting learning skills for the 21st Century.

One of the best ways is to provide them with the tools they’ll need for work, play and lifelong learning. The most basic of today’s tools is a video iPod. Putting these into the hands of students promotes learning 24 hours a day / 7 days a week and helps them prepare for the future.

Whether it is a superintendent, technology specialist, principal, classroom teacher or student, developing technology skills is fundamental to success. Educational technologists have been spending far too much time, energy and money on bits and bytes. We need to shift the focus from systems to people, and that takes progressive strategies and leadership. When we begin to put people first, we will finally realize the fruits of our technology investments and our assessments will begin to reflect our accomplishments.

Some months back, Michael Cox, a chief economist for the Federal Reserve Bank, predicted to a group of students that they would have at least five jobs after they graduate, four of which haven’t been invented yet. For the old “Digital Dinosaurs” like me, it is a wake-up call that we cannot ever look back, but must continue to be visionary and creating opportunities outside the box. The Governor’s Office, under the direction of the Educational Technology Advisor, Nancy Sturm, conducted a statewide Web Page Design Competition for high school students to promote just that type of agenda.

Wallace E. Boston, President and CEO of American Public University System (APUS) in Charles Town, sponsored the competition and provided the wonderful awards we presented to the winning students and teachers. Prizes, totaling more than $10,000, were presented at the Governor’s Mansion at a luncheon honoring the students, the teachers, their families and the schools. Each student and teacher received a certificate and a self-monogrammed Video iPod. They were overwhelmed but extremely excited with their awards. APUS is the only totally online university in West Virginia and serves more than 16,000 students worldwide.

This competition will be replicated next year and will again be sponsored by Wallace E. Boston and APUS. The criteria for school year 2007 will center around using iPods for instructional purposes. High School students will be asked to design a Pod Cast using content information from a specific course of study. The students were already talking about the possibilities as they left the mansion for their trip home.

It is with great pride that I announce the winners of our very first Governor’s Technology Competition: 1st Place: Harts HS, Phyllis Kirk – teacher; 2nd Place: Buckhannon-Upshur HS, Rebecca Nesbitt – teacher and Daniel Nesbitt – teacher; 3rd Place: Hedgesville HS, Sharon Dove – teacher; and, 4th Place Tie: Putnam Career and Technical Center, Lynne McNiel – teacher and Berkeley Springs HS, Curt Heldreth – teacher/advisor.

Congratulations to our schools for their support and encouragement to their students!

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Break, Blow, Burn’ is Camille Paglia’s Close Reading, Explication of 43 Poems

Reviewed By David M. Kinchen

Hinton, WV – Camille Paglia’s “Break, Blow, Burn” (Pantheon, 272 pages, $20.00) is an anthology of 43 English language poems over the centuries, chosen by and explicated by one of the most eccentric and well known teacher/critic/academic celebrities around.

It’s definitely worth reading by anyone who loves poetry and wants to appreciate it even more – even if the omissions are enough to make a serious poetry lover cry out in anguish (more about that later).

Paglia, born to working class Italian immigrant parents in Endicott, NY in 1947, is not everyone’s glass of chianti, but I for one appreciate her defense of the New Criticism and line-by-line explication of text, especially in poetry. This is what I learned as an English major almost a decade before Paglia at a state university not unlike her alma mater, SUNY Binghamton.

Like her, I’m in love with the English language, a perfect language for poetry because of its sharp edges and contrasts between multiple vocabularies. English, like everything in this messy world, is a glorious mongrel of a language.

Be sure to give a “close reading” to the introduction to “Break, Blow, Burn,” because Paglia explains why she took the best elements of the New Criticism, combined it with her interpretations of psychology, anthropology, mythology and popular culture to create a unique perspective. Put it this way: There’s no one quite like Paglia!

She says that “the New Criticism, attuned to paradox and ambiguity, was a sophisticated system of interpretation that has never been surpassed as a pedagogical tool for helping novice as well as veteran readers to understand poetry.”

Camille Paglia

Unfortunately, as she points out in several biting paragraphs, if you’re an English major today, the chances are pretty good you’ll face “European post-structualism” – introduced like a cultural kudzu in the 1970s – creating a “disaster from which higher education has yet to recover.” This may be a bit over the top, but it’s vintage Paglia. I happen to agree with her assessment of most higher education literature departments as vast politicized wastelands.

To escape this, you’ll have to scope out a university, like the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where Paglia is on the faculty. If you can’t avoid the plague of poststructuralism, just buy Paglia’s book – now out in paperback – and educate yourself.

Like the eccentric Paglia herself, the choice of poets is idiosyncratic, bizarre, even, but a lot of fun.

Shakespeare, the English language’s greatest poet, is represented with a scene from “Hamlet,” Sonnet 73 and one of my favorites, Sonnet 29 (“When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,/ I all alone beweep my outcast state…” John Donne and George Herbert are among the Metaphysical poets represented. I looked in vain for John Milton, arguably up there with Shakespeare, but William Blake is here, as is Andrew Marvell. No Alexander Pope? Wordsworth and Coleridge are represented, but where’s John Keats, Byron and Percy Shelley? Come on, now, Camille!

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are represented, but no Tennyson, Byron or Hardy or Matthew Arnold (“Dover Beach” sends chills up and down my spine, which is what poetry is all about). William Butler Yeats is here, as is Wallace Stevens. Langston Hughes is represented by the superb “Jazzonia.” Robert Lowell is included, with “Man and Wife.”

Among the moderns are Theodore Roethke, Sylvia Plath with “Daddy” – 80 lines of the most evocative poetry in English or any other language; Frank O’Hara, William Carlos Williams, Wanda Coleman, Gary Snyder and Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, among several others.

I’m a big fan of Edward Arlington Robinson, but he’s not here, nor is Robinson Jeffers or T.S. Eliot. But it’s Paglia’s book and she must have reasons for leaving out some of my favorite poets.

Each of the 43 poems is printed in full, followed by an essay. The title comes from a line in Donne’s “Holy Sonnet XIV”: “Batter my heart, three-person’d God…and bend your force to break, blow, burn and make me anew.”

Rather than regretting the poets that aren’t included – did I mention Dylan Thomas, W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Hart Crane, Ezra Pound? – let’s treasure “Break, Blow, Burn” for the poems and the poets that are included.

If you’re new to poetry or want to look at it from a fresh perspective, “Break, Blow, Burn” is a worthy companion. Let’s hope Paglia follows up this book with a series of several more with more poets.

(Originially published on www.huntingtonnews.net on May 1, 2006)
Publisher’s web site: www.pantheonbooks.com

Author’s site: www.breakblowburn.com

A good site with links to 161 modern American poets: www.english.uiuc.edu/Maps/poets.htm

A good site explaining the New Criticism with reference to major texts by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren and others:

http://130.179.92.25/Arnason_DE/New_Criticism.html